Eurydice ( Pronounced: "U-REE-DICE ) was born to a poor family, they often went hungry and at night they sat on the cracked and slanted dinner table, wearing tattered clothes and spooned in assortments of vegetables they had grown in the garden, cooked in some broth; usually leeks.
Eurydice hated leeks.
His father during his youth had many assets and properties, however due to ill-advised investments and unlucky trades, his wealth degraded to what it is now, promises of wealth that had been made to Eurydice from loving grandparents were dreams who's foundations had been built on a bed of lies. The more he thought about it, the more anger and hate he felt for his father. Why did he have to suffer for another's mistakes? Why couldn't he have been in his fathers place and controlled that wealth? Why couldn't fate have been kinder to him?
Rather than be wisened by his mistakes, Eurydice's father took to more unconventional methods to relieve stress and make him forget about his problems. There existed plants and liquids in the forest that when mixed together gave a euphoric feeling, consumption of this was strictly controlled for the general safety of others and only given to patients when undergoing a painful ordeal. Eurydice's father and his new group of friends, all with personalities forged from failure, managed to find a supplier; the dosage and quality of the goods from his dealer was abysmal to say the least, shortcuts taken when manufacturing lead to the young Dryad's father frequently losing control of himself, drowning himself in anger and growing more bitter by the day. Eurydice would often be the victim of his fathers yelling or abuse, his mother supported, or at least never tried, to change his fathers behaviour.
The moment this started to happen, he disregarded both of their lives and stopped imagining them as his family.
Eurydice had a younger sister whom his parents doted on, she was as close to a genius the poor village had ever received, even with Eurydice's poor background, the villagers often pooled resources to allow his sister to gain the best education and she was currently living in the Capital, attending an academy for mages and practicing potion brewing on the side. Every few weeks the village would receive his sister's newest batch of potions, each one more potent than the one before it. The village would sing her praises around Eurydice's house, elders teased him about his sister's success, only half-knowing the turmoil he was in. He loved his sister and cherished her as the only family member that had continuously been kind to him and helped whenever she could, but the poison the other villagers spit when talking about her and the comparisons they so frequently made caused him to grow hateful, his new position on his sister made him start to hate himself as well.
Fate struck him in the form of a hungry and dirt-ridden man who arrived at his village, desperate for food. Eurydice had grown shrewd in his time amongst the village's poor and immediately recognised the quality of the clothes caked beneath the mud which covered this traveller, he wanted to take the man in to make him owe Eurydice a debt not easily repaid... and if the man perished? Eurydice could always clean his clothes and sell them once he got out of this backwater village, he might even be able to go to the capital with those funds! There was no way he could lose in this deal! Destiny had finally extended him an olive branch.
He took the man in, immediately rushing into his house and feeding the man leftovers from his leek soup salvaged from last night's dinner, the meal wasn't luxurious and the quality was far from what the well dressed man was used to, but it was a lifeline the traveller was extremely thankful for. The Dryad who's life he had saved was the son of a Baron, he was reportedly jumped by bandits who took his wealth and murdered those who sought to protect him; quickly thinking, the man used a scroll to teleport a large distance away in a random direction, landing near Eurydice's village consequently.
The name of this young noble was Oak, he felt such gratitude towards his saviour, gratitude that was heightened by his days of traversing a harsh forest which he was not used to. He led a pampered life and lived inside a small mansion, rarely going outside and rejecting his nature as a Dryad, his father was kind and his mother was loving; his elder brothers would always take care of him.
Oak sat in Eurydice's hut for a week until he recovered and became well enough to travel back to the Capital, in the meantime Oak told stories of the wonders the Capital had, his loving family and his future plans, Oak promised his saviour that he would do anything within his power to help.
Without a moment of hesitation, Eurydice replied.
"I want a job! I want a job in the capital and some starting funds!"
"Oh, Bahaha! Perfect! I was worried you'd refuse my help Eury, acting modest in front of me would be superfluous ! I'm glad you're intelligent enough to take a hold of this opportunity hahaha! There are a plethora of other things I could do for you, are you sure this is what you want"
Oak replied, leek juice sprouting from his nose as he laughed, for a noble his actions were undignified but in Eurydice he had found a friend he could talk to without the facade of a noble's attitude attached to his personality.
"Yes yes! Any excess gratitude left over can be exchanged into cash of course!"
The two friends laughed out loud as they kept making jokes at each other's responses.
Eurydice felt envy towards Oak's situation, but Oak had given him such a wondrous offer and talked to Eurydice as an equal, the young noble knew nothing of his sister's situation or what the happenings were at his house, that's how Eurydice liked it. During the week Eurydice had kept Oak over, he grew to like his companionship, he had finally found someone who wouldn't berate him or compare him to another.
Oak set off to the capital in a worn down carriage, contrary to it's looks, there were various C class adventurers aboard, his father had done his utomst to ensure another bandit attack wouldn't happen again. Huddled inside the carriage was Eurydice himself, he escaped from the village without so much as a goodbye to the townspeople, he could care less about them. As he distanced himself from the village, he rejoiced in his heart, his time had finally come.
Once they had arrived, Oak was swiftly taken away from his new friend and was shuttled off to report to his father, Eurydice was shuttled along to the military to work, Oak had kept his promise.
Eurydice never saw Oak again after that day for many years to come. Eurydice's expendability as a backwater Dryad who joined through a small connection was useful to the military; more so than most nobles who the military and kingdom had to be careful off and protect, lest they lose the funding their parents provide. Eurydice was trained and brought up as a spy from the age 19 to 28, everyday he used his bitterness from his past to power through and work hard; the lack of closure made his anger ferment into the horrible state of mind he is in now, he expected Oak to visit him at least, but not a word came in 9 years.
Eurydice lacked skill and talent, taking an extra 2 years to finish the training than most of his colleagues took, he was extremely ecstatic when a mission to infiltrate the Kingdom of Kuru's villages was given to him. The now adult dryad had great ambition but low talents, he promised himself to do whatever it would take to surpass his sister and show up to the village as an important and powerful man. He had trained for years and was thrown into various environments, but his thinking was still focused on the trauma he received when he was young.
Clad in black clothes, Eurydice travelled through the harsh wildreness on his lonesome, he was swiftly reaching his destination.
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"Ahhh gods I'm tired"
Eurydice sighed and rested his feet on a branch, applying some healing balm liberally all over his calves as he did so.
'It's so damn hard to roll up this suit! What idiot designed this? Don't they know we spies get hurt in our line of work?'
Silently cursing the designer, Eurydice strengthened the branch using nature magic and rested his head on the tree, closing his eyes and reciting his sleep mantra which he swore decreased the time it takes to get to REM sleep, as he was doing so he heard a quiet 'pitter-patter' coming from below the tree he had taken up as his bed for the night.
He peered over the branch, careful as not to make any noise and alert the other party to his presence.
'Ah! An Ignison Chick! All alone as well! What a cute child haha!'
Dryad's were finely tuned with nature and cared for most magical beasts, meat of another was repulsive to them and therefore he looked at the chick with eyes a human would look at a puppy. The Dryad spent some more time watching the cutie walk around when he noticed the weird object strapped to it's back, some sort of container? And the chick was carrying some fruit around, was the mother taken down by adventurers, she must've at least procured a latge amount of food before dying right? This chick's circumstances were too odd for Eurydice to fully understand, this caused him to spend some more time watching the chick than he would have done if it were a normal beast, that's when he noticed it.
'Holy sh*t... was that a mutation?!'
There was no doubt about it, the beast had acquired some sort of feather control mutation and chances are it received it a long time ago due to how often the bird was able to bring it up and use with such prowess. Eurydice's eyes glimmered with greed.
'If I could just get my hands on that bird... sell those feathers... oh man I'd be rich! I could start a business, I could buy better weapons, I could improve my life so much!'
Dryads loved and cared for most magical beasts, but this one was a ticket to a much better life, he cannot let this one go.
Eurydice slowly grabbed a scroll hidden in one of his many utility pockets and thumbed it out, splaying the formation out, he just needed to find the perfect moment to rip it and activate the formation! He had to control the laughter and glee he was feeling at the moment, otherwise he'd probably be heard all the way back in his kingdom!
His thin lips curled into a wicked smile, he clutched the scroll and jumped off the tree, a few metres behind the unsuspecting bird.